On a Path I Cannot Follow
by DigitalTart
Summary: Penelo's life following the end of FFXII, as told by her own pen. Larsa X Penelo.
1. Chapter 1

_Postgame Larsa x Penelo. Rated T for suggestive language, mature themes, and vague academic pretensions. Ignores Revenant Wings canon because I'm too poor to buy a Nintendo DS._

_Edited 3-1-08 because this --hole of a site stripped all the entry dividers. Then some spaces. And a few periods, for good measure. WTH. The writers don't proofread well enough as it is. :O  
_

* * *

_Foreword & About the Diary_

Early this year, a pair of biological survey subs discovered a radar anomaly off the northern coast of what is left of the great jungles of Kerwon. Buried under centuries upon centuries of silt and seaweed was the historical find of the decade—the wreck of a small, sleek-bodied airship. The exterior was heavily corroded, but several interior compartments (possibly used to smuggle black-market goods) remained miraculously sealed. Inside was the true jewel of the site: a woman's personal diary, penned during the last years of the Archadian Empire.

During my painstaking translation of the fragile book, I discovered it to be more than a simple chronicle of daily existence—pressed into the pages were two locks of hair: one pale, presumably belonging to the Dalmascan author, and one dark, purported by the entries to have belonged to Emperor Larsa Ferrinas Solidor himself. Though this claim is wholly unverifiable, I, for one, believe it to be the truth. Holding the book in one's hand, it is almost impossible _not_ to believe—not to imagine the scratching of her pen upon the page, the musk of the leather binding tickling her nose, or her tears pooling smudges in the delicate swashes of the letters.

It is, at its heart, a love story.

_Am-Amane Helias, Professor of Classical Linguistics, _

_Temple Hill University_

_Federated States of Roza-Szarita_

* * *

_September 15, 706_

I'm home. I'm home I'm home I'm home. The war is over almost before it started. We did it and even though I'm lying in my own bed writing this I don't believe it. I am going to wash every day and wear nothing but silk and make Vaan feed me peeled grapes or something.

I feel sorry for Ashe, Basch, and Larsa, though—their work is just starting and there's so much of it do. Everyone in Rabanastre wants Ashe back, and she's going to do the best job of ruling Dalmasca since Raithwall and you'd better believe it. I mean, who else could act on their conscience against the will of _gods_? Her I'm not worried about, but Larsa...

My stomach hurts whenever I think of him, and the look on his face when we killed Vayne. He lost so much. Gabranth I couldn't save. He was bleeding inside for too long, and by the time we got him on the _Strahl_ there was nothing I could do. Larsa said he was all right, but how could anyone be, after that? I made him come with me to the aft cabins for a little while, before we dropped him off on the _Alexander, _just to give him a little space. When I sat down with him on the cot he just _broke_. Archadians lie all the time, even Larsa, and even when he should know better. It's ground in so deep I'm not sure they even know how to stop. I didn't know what to say, if there was even anything I could say, so I just let him cry. I can't even imagine.

He'll be going back to Archades in two days, with Basch…I mean, 'Judge Magister Gabranth'. I hope I get a chance to say goodbye. Better put this away for now. Migelo is throwing us a party the likes of which the Sandsea has never seen.

-ooo-

_September 19, 706_

Larsa is gone. Too much official business no goodbyes from Rabanastran street rats. I should have expected.

The_ Bahamut_ finally stopped burning. The salvage crews found bodies inside that were too badly charred to identify.

We haven't heard anything from Fran or Balthier. Not a thing.

-ooo-

_October 9, 706_

I bought some incense at the Bazaar, and we burned it for them in the Strahl's berth at the Aerodrome: red pine for Balthier, and Kerwon clove for Fran. Vaan tried to pretend he wasn't crying. I didn't. Pretend, that is.

The ship needs some work, mostly replacement of the hull plates that got shot up and probably the fuel lines too. We're starting on it tomorrow. I don't know what I'm doing. Nono will help, but I wish Fran were here.

-ooo-

_October 27, 706_

Vaan and I are moving out of the apartment above Migelo's shop. We're not going far, just closer to the Aerodrome. Migelo is taking it pretty well, and Kytes is going to stick around for a while.

I never paid much attention to how much money we made hunting—mostly Balthier took care of the gil. Turns out it was a lot. _Really_ a lot, especially since Basch and Ashe gave us their take, and Balthier and Fran...aren't coming back. When Montblanc showed Vaan the ledgers, I thought he was going to faint dead away on the carpet. It's enough to live on for a while if I can keep him from blowing it all on something dumb, like a life-size solid gold chocobo.

If I wrote Larsa a letter, would he get it?

-ooo-

_November 20, 706_

I got a letter back! The Emperor of Archadia made time to write back to me. It's kind of a weird feeling. He signed it "Lamont", and there was no return address. Sneak. Things in Archadia aren't so good. He's got the name and the face, but nobody wants to take orders from a slightly-more-than-thirteen-year-old.

People would take him more seriously if he stopped wearing those silly boots, I swear.

-ooo-

_January 7, 707_

Vaan has ants in his pants about getting started on this Grand Piracy Adventure and it's getting on my nerves. He came back to the flat with an ugly tattoo of a bellwyvern on his back (way to spend our grocery money), and has been trying to grow a beard, which is not working with hilarious results. I think he's bored. I'm bored. Bored. Lots of bored. But it is kind of nice, in its own way. I can appreciate boredom. It means nothing and no one is trying to kill, kidnap, or eat me. Vaan and I apparently do not see eye to eye on this.

-ooo-

_July 3, 707_

Months of nothing. Then _Strahl_ disappeared this morning, right after we finished tuning it up.

Balthier is an impossibly selfish, stupid, egotistical son of a Giza toad who couldn't even be bothered to post a letter telling us he wasn't dead, that _jerk_. We spent all his money. Serves him right.

I guess it's time to see how much a nice second-hand cargo ship costs…

-ooo-

July 19, 707

Okay, I take some of it back. Balthier has an impressive stash of favors to cash in, one of which happened to be a great deal on a smuggler-modded Bhujerban light cargo ship. We've named it the_ Harsh Dawn_.

I think it's time to go play with some engines.

-ooo-

_September 25, 707_

Ashe's coronation was today. I had to wear pinchy shoes, but it was worth it because I got to see Larsa again. He turned all red when I hugged him. It was cute. He's bigger, but not much bigger, and still all bony. Basch couldn't take off his helm for obvious reasons, but I think he had a good time anyway.

Balthier popped up out of nowhere (without an invitation, because I guess nobody could figure out how to send him one) and Ashe made about sixty million of those little gaspy noises. Fran was there too, in a gown with her hair down and no weapons _anywhere_. It was seriously the weirdest thing I've ever seen. No…actually watching Vaan get the snot beaten out of him by a pumpkin in the Sochen Cave Palace was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. But this was a close second.

-ooo-

_December 2, 707_

I got a letter from _Basch_ today, of all people. Not that I'm objecting, but he always seemed closer to Vaan than to me, once he got the screaming and punching out of his system, anyways. Larsa's coming back for a state visit, to sign a treaty with Queen Ashe banning manufacted nethicite (about time!!). He asked about Vaan and Ashe, who are both just fine. The rest of his letter was just…just weird. He's either trying to write in code, or steering Larsa through puberty has knocked all his marbles out. Since he got through two years in an Archadian prison with his sanity intact, it's probably the first one. I'm hoping. The general conclusion (Vaan and Migelo are the only ones I trust with this) is that he's asking us to kidnap the Emperor for an afternoon. Vaan thinks this is a very good idea, and plans to go through with it whether it's what Basch meant or not.

-ooo-

_April 8, 708_

Vaan is loving this. I finally convinced him to let Queen Ashe in on The Plan. He wanted to sneak into the palace again without her help, but let's be honest…the first time was a total fluke. And I am _not_ involving Old Dalan. He likes us well enough, but spilling The Plan to Lowtown's top information broker? Not so smart.

We get to go shopping for a hovercycle and grapples today. Excited!

-ooo-

_May 21, 708_

Big day tomorrow. I'm nervous. Not about the job, really, because the stakes aren't high. The worst that happens is that we get busted, Basch and/or Queen Ashe bail us out, and we look like total idiots in front of Larsa. It's more about seeing him, I guess. Ashe has been Queen about two years now, and it's really changed her. She's not cold with Vaan and me, exactly…more like…it's obvious we are what we and she is what she is. On the road, she ate the same food and slept on the same ground we did. Unless you scrubbed her down, got that beat-up old sword out of her hand, and put a crown on her head, nobody would know her for royalty. I certainly didn't.

I don't want it to be the same way with Larsa. I don't want him to be the emperor. I just want him to be the kid that whiffed Basch with a snowball on the way to Bur-Omisace. He's probably not, but there's no harm in wishing.

-ooo-

_May 22, 708_

There's really no way I can keep calling him a kid with a voice that deep. He'd probably still get Basch with the snowball, though.

Gods was today tiring. I'll finish tomorrow.

-ooo-

_May 24, 708_

Busy yesterday. As I was saying…he grew up. He really did. And I thought he was cute before.

I never missed not having "boys" in my life, not since the time Vaan picked the locks on Migelo's liquor cabinet for Reks and Giana. I barely remember anything from that night but Vaan's horrible kissing and how much trouble he had figuring out my underwear, and all the throwing up the next day didn't cast the whole ordeal in a much better light. But still…I got back my taste for wine now that I'm older. Maybe it's the same.

I'm kind of worried about Larsa, though. He really didn't look so great, like he hadn't been sleeping enough. When I magicked away that horrible sunburn he got sandsailing, I could feel it inside too. He's not sick or hurt in any way I could fix, but…he's all stretched out and worn down and he's only fifteen. It kind of scares me.

-ooo-

_November 2, 708_

Piracy isn't what I imagined it to be. There are only so many ancient ruins to loot in the world, and most of the ones left don't have anything more interesting than zombies and bat poop. The easy money is really in running drugs north across the border, or raiding the little Bhujerban mining islands for refined skystone. You have to hurt people that don't deserve to be hurt, either way.

All the slime came oozing out of the woodwork after Reddas died. Everything he built up in Balfonheim is collapsing, and "honest pirate" is becoming an oxymoron again. Balthier and Fran are the exception to the rule, and even they've done some nasty things when their backs were to the wall. Playing the gentleman and stealing only from the people with the deepest pockets it is a luxury most pirates can't afford. Balthier knows how to stay a step ahead of the Judiciary because he used to be _in _it. He knows how the Archadian gentry wire up the security systems in their estates and townhouses because he _lived_ in them. Living like he does takes wit and skill most people haven't got, and even _if_ you've got…it's so easy to slip just once and watch your whole world go up like dry brush. Vaan has no idea how dangerous this game really is, and worse yet doesn't know how much he doesn't know. If he keeps coasting on luck he's going to get us both killed.

-ooo-

_January 13__th__, 709_

We're running down to the last of the Saved the World money. The landlord likes us, but heroes've still got to pay rent, and I am _not_ asking Queen Ashe to make up the difference. Decent Marks aren't coming up as often as they used to, either. I sound like a total hypocrite, but it's hard to drum up quick cash in peacetime by any method I am willing to use. Hireswords are shit out of work when the armies are off killing menacing critters instead of each other. See also: pirates. Sigh, sigh, sigh. Now that the Rozarrians don't have them pouncing on shadows, the Archadian Navy has a heck of a lot more time to go after people like us.

Vaan's schemes are getting nastier by the month. It's not his fault. It's business.

I still don't like it.

-ooo-

_February 4__th__, 709_

Vaan isn't speaking to me. I told him exactly what he didn't want to hear—the truth. This was his dream. I thought it was mine too, with all the stories he told me, but it's not. I feel like a harpy for spitting on it, but I'm trying to keep his stupid neck out of a noose! That's what they do to careless pirates, see. There is no little slap on the wrist and a stern talking-to by the Night Watch, or a couple days in the lockup until Migelo comes down to "sort it out" with a cask of wine and a box of cakes with a 200 gil note stuck to the bottom.

I thought we would be together forever. No…that's not right. I didn't really think it, but I never imagined a future without him around because it's like imaging a future without my arm or my leg. But I'm tired of hurting people, and that's what Vaan is going to have to do, sooner or later. I did enough for Queen Ashe. I killed for her, even, since she is my queen and I wanted my home to be Dalmasca again, free, the way it was supposed to be. Now we are, and I'm done with swords.

-ooo-

_April 28, 709_

Vaan is still disappeared. He withdrew half the pitiful amount of money in the Clan account and…poof. Oh _gods_ I hope he's with Balthier, and not trying to make it on his own.

I took out my dancing bells again for something to do, but without my drummer there's not much point. No one else can do it like he did because no one else knows me as well as he does…or did. Migelo has been giving me things to do around the shop because he feels sorry for me. It's depressing. I find myself writing to Larsa every week instead, even though I don't send most all of the letters. Mostly it's a way to keep my hands busy.

-ooo-

_June 17, 709_

Larsa wrote me another letter—with an offer of sponsorship to the Healer's Collegium in the Akademy at Archades. It's the best medical school in Ivalice. Fran told me I have the talent inside me—more than her, even, and I don't think she likes admitting to be second-best.

Nobody knows why it happens, why some people have the power and some don't. I know the glyphs, but that's not all there is. It's barely half. Magic can only fix what a body could repair itself. It can't set bones, give blood, help a mother through troubled labor, or ease the ache in an old man's knuckles. I can't waste what I was given, even if I have no idea why it chose me.

I don't want to leave Rabanstre, but I don't think I can stay, either.


	2. Chapter 2

_July 6, 709_

Larsa sent me so much…stuff. Everything I could possibly need was in my apartments when I arrived. All the clothes were much nicer than what I have, but not so fancy I feel silly wearing them. I wonder who picked them out? Not Larsa…that's for sure, poor guy. He still has no taste in clothes.

There was a whole string of those sandalwood chops in the boxes too. I wonder how they keep people from counterfeiting them? Must be spelled. There I go, thinking like a street rat again. _Got_ to stop doing that. I barely even need them, anyway. Word got around who'll be paying my tuition, and the Emperor's favor is worth more than all their stupid chops put together. Everyone is nice to me, in that sort of sneaky, insincere Archadian way, like they think I don't realize they're using me to get a good angle to kiss Larsa's butt. Provincial, yes. Stupid, no. Rabanastre isn't Archades, but I didn't grow up in an oasis shack, thank you.

-ooo-

_August 23, 709 _

Archades isn't as bad as I thought, as long as you keep your mouth shut and your nose in your books. There's so much I don't know I feel like I'm drowning in paper, but on the other hand I don't throw up or pass out at the sight of blood, which is more than I can say for the rest of the class. They're mostly "young men of good breeding": boring, snide, and really weak of stomach for people who want to be surgeons. Some of the other scholarship students are nice, though. We stick together and whine about smog and the society boys.

Even then…I'm so different from the rest of them, and not because I'm a southerner. I have a fallen god living inside my head, by all that is holy. I've seen more death at the age of twenty than the rest of them are likely to see in their entire lives. They have no idea what the war was like, and while I don't bear them any grudge for what happened to my family, none of them _understand,_ no matter how hard they try How could they?

-ooo-

_August 31, 709_

I miss Vaan so much. Archadians are all work work work work, like they don't understand life is meant to be lived out under the sun, not held prisoner in the library. I don't know how they find time to breathe. I barely have time to write in this anymore.

-ooo-

_May 5, 710_

TERM IS OUT. Thank all the assorted spirits of academia.

I only see Larsa as often as he wrote me when I lived in Rabanastre, and it's usually at a ball or something with lots of people around. He makes time to talk to me, though. But very carefully—I think I make him squeaky. It's sweet. At least I can dance, and well, too. The Archadian steps are so stiff, so I've been trying to liven them up a bit. The court ladies have been giving me nasty looks recently. My, do you think they're jealous?

-ooo-

_October 13, 710_

It's Larsa's birthday. I had _no idea_ what to get him, but it turned out not to matter, because in Archadia the birthday boy gives things instead of getting them. The party lasted days and I barely saw him, but there was a package on my bed when I got home that smelled like citron. I was ready to pout pointlessly for days for getting something as pedestrian as candy, but that was only until I saw the Biin & Harend's Confectionary seal on the back. It's not the most expensive, or the flashiest, or the rarest, but it is the best. Most Rabanastrans don't even know where to find it, which can only mean he had assistance, probably spelled V-A-A-N.

The only thing that mars this absolutely incredible wonderful day is that the pages of this diary are now all sticky.

-ooo-

_June 1, 713_

Well, it seems I found where this book disappeared to. One finds all manner of fascinating things behind the desk on moving day.

I graduated from the Akademy and will be starting my residency next month, under one of the palace medical staff at Larsa's request. No honors and only barely acceptable grades, but since the professors assumed I was functionally illiterate and wouldn't last a month, this counts as victory. I managed to get through four years without punching Dr. Ilsa in the face. Congratulations to me.

Graduation ball tonight. I'll wear the blue dress. He likes the blue dress.

-ooo-

_Ju__ne 2, 713_

I finally found the one thing Larsa Ferrinas Solidor isn't good at. He's eighteen years old and I swear he's never kissed a woman before, never mind what comes afterwards. I am so glad he's too polite to ask where _I_ learned it.

-ooo-

_June 18, 713_

Good places to have fun in the Imperial Palace that are not Larsa's suites:

1. Staging room, sw banquet hall 2nd tower.

2. Butler's pantry sw tower 59th floor past alabaster pillars hidden door (no lock, use only when Minister of Education is OUT ON STATE BUSINESS).

3. Talkes gallery central tower 41st floor (locks, thick walls, dusty, DON'T BREAK THE VASES).

4. Tax Law archives nw tower 9th floor (no lock, never used).

5. Secret passageway minor audience hall-->men's toilet's (no lock, smells funny, never used).

P.S. Always sweep for peeper bugs!

-ooo-

July 3, 713

I could almost _feel_ the head physician sneering at me when Larsa introduced us. He's a very practical man, it seems, who had no time to waste coddling the Emperor's fluffbrained foreign mistress while she plays at becoming a healer. It lasted until I accompanied him to Judge Magister Calys's martial trials and spent three hours attending to the mincemeat she made of the low Judges. There's nothing like getting wrist-deep in arterial blood to impress older men.

I'm keeping an eye on Calys, too. After their match, I could've sworn she got Gabranth to smile. You know, in addition to bruise funny colors in three places.

-ooo-

_August 23, 713_

Meeting of Southern Expatriates Who've Found Themselves Gladly Working for the Country that Destroyed their Lives Association in my quarters today, by which I mean I raided the markets in the Dalmascan Quarter and cooked Gabranth and myself some honest desert food. The fresh figs were pathetic, but such life in the frozen north.

The topic of conversation at these meetings is always some combination of Larsa and nostalgia, which suits me quite well. It is not, as many seem to be imagining, an excuse for the hot-blooded Dalmascan temptress to start in on wrapping the august leaders of Archadia around her pinky finger. The first time I overheard it I could barely stop laughing for the entire day. First off, I'm about two cup sizes too small to make a proper temptress, and second, even if I weren't, Gabranth isn't pliable enough. The most passion we share is over Migelo's baklava recipe, and he's old enough to be my father, for sakes. I wonder how long it will take for some enterprising young fop to throw open my door with the Guard at his back in a hilariously misguided effort to catch us en _flagrante delicto_?

I have decided to encourage these rumors. Larsa needs a good laugh.

-ooo-

_September 1, 713_

Getting Larsa to relax, really relax, is a full-time job in itself. It took almost an hour of pleading to get him back in bed this morning, and that was only after I pointed out that coughing all over one's Censors while they delivered their biennial tax adjustment reports would create more problems than it solved. And don't get me started on how hard it is to get three good meals in him every day. One of these days I'll have Gabranth conk him on the head and tie him to a chair until he figures out he has higher nutritional requirements than a ground squirrel.

-ooo-

_December 13, 713_

He's so formal, all the time, as if sex was a set of dance steps one can pick up from a manual (and I think he tried this, bless his backwards imperial heart). He's so anxious to please me, which is so much more than I would expect from most –boys- men his age that it's almost unnerving. It's a strange thing to say, but I wish he were more selfish. Everything he does is in service to another, and it wears him down. I suppose he doesn't realize that he has to take care of himself or there won't be anything left to take care of the rest of us.

-ooo-

_January 1st, 714_

We're here to have fun, oh my Emperor, and you've got to come to terms with certain facts, namely that good sex gets mighty sticky. This has closed off a lot of the more interesting options, and is starting to grate on my nerves something fierce. I shouldn't have expected anything else of someone who wears gloves all the time, but nevertheless…I think he's afraid of me and afraid of my body. It's so frustrating. He wants me, but now that he's got me he doesn't know what to do and is afraid to learn.

I wonder what would happen if I tied him to the headboard?

-ooo-

_January 3, 714_

Answer: good things. I always wondered why Migelo would get his whiskers in a knot over the time I spent with the girls from the Red Bell House. They knew what they were talking about. And I _am_ still a respectable woman, thank you, with a nice flat in a swank part of town, a degree from a prestigious university, and a head of state that enjoys nibbling on my neck.

-ooo-

_March 21, 714_

Larsa has gone for the next week to meet with a certain man with a very powerful great-uncle, a sunglasses fetish, and no taste. I anxiously await his return, since we were just starting to get somewhere. Then again, knowing the other party in these covert negotiations, maybe he'll be coming back with some useful tips.

-ooo-

_April 5, 714_

I don't know why this took me so long to figure out, but he doesn't trust me. I've never done anything to put that kind of doubt in his mind and never will, but _plenty_ of others got there ahead of me. His brothers, his father, Judge Drace, the _real _Judge Gabranth…he didn't just lose them, they were taken, by a man he trusted almost above all others. He knew Vayne his whole life, and if betrayal could strike from that quarter…what ground do I have to stand on to convince him I would never do the same? I don't know if it's in my power to untangle Larsa from the briar Vayne left him in, but on my honor as a healer I'm going to keep trying.

-ooo-

_June 1, 714_

I'm not sure whether to smile or cry. Larsa summoned me to his suites after supper for 'a surprise'. It was all lit with spice candles, not electric lights, and he had the best imperial vintage ready in two crystal goblets, with a little velvet box between them.

There were two sets of promise rings inside, and a lock of his hair wrapped in silk. He researched it thoroughly—the rings were works of art, the moons set with diamond and the suns with golden topaz. The moon ring is still on my finger because I can't bear to take it off, now, but it doesn't _mean_ anything to him. Even if I slipped the second ring on his finger to seal the match and made love to him right then and there, we wouldn't be married. Politics demand a powerful family to join with the Solidor line, and even if it didn't I do not _ever_ wish to wear the Empress's crown. Playing along with my quaint country customs does not show your devotion, because they aren't games to _me_.

-ooo-

_June 4, 714_

Emperor Larsa the Peacemaker. I thought it was a wonderful epithet—until he directed it _at me_. A lovers' spat does not need immediate diplomatic concessions and impartial mediation. If I want to smash a few teacups and then stalk off into the lily garden and be angry at him for a while for being a condescending twit, by all the gods that's what I'm going to do.

-ooo-

_June 12, 714_

I'm chalking it up to cultural differences. When Archadians get mad, they go quiet. When Dalmascans get mad, they yell. And sometimes smash porcelain. I must have frightened him terribly getting so worked up…an escalation of misunderstanding. I feel awful about it. But I still wonder. Why now? If we had been born into different lives I wouldn't have hesitated, with this prickles at me in a way I don't like at all. Larsa isn't much like the rest of the nobility, but he is Archadian, and nothing they do ever has only one purpose or one motivation. Still, I left one of my braids on his pillow. If he's gotten this far, he should know it means.

-ooo-

_October 3, 714_

It was like old times again. Gabranth dug up some kid from one of the acting troupes that looks just like our dearest Emperor and paid him some obscene amount of cash to lie in bed and pretend to have eaten some bad shrimp. Lamont and I escaped to the park at Dale's Landing to watch the leaves fall. Doing something so simple and wonderful with him is so rare is hurts. Every moment I have alone with him feels stolen. It was exhilarating at first, but thievery doesn't feed the heart for long.

People are starting to whisper. He has no heir, and he is of age to marry now. Lamont is mine. Larsa…I don't know. I asked, and looked me in the eyes and assured me he has no intention of marrying soon. It doesn't solve the problem, but I'll take it for now.

-ooo-

_January 28, 715_

He's a really excellent liar when he tries. Somehow I overlooked that trademark Solidor trait. How foolish. He doles them out to me so infrequently I swallowed the last one without a second thought—which I suppose was his intent all along, that two-faced little bastard.

The whispering became clamor, and Larsa bowed to it. I wish more than anything I could have given him a child. I wish I could sprout wings and fly, too, but wishing doesn't make either more likely to occur. He has "no choice" but to placate the gentry rather than put any child of mixed blood in the line of succession, which means he would not acknowledge one, which means the baby would not have a father. I understand that it is better to have an Archadia united under his scepter than the alternative, but that doesn't make it hurt any less. I followed him all the way the hell up here because I love him. I love him more than anything, and the last steps of this journey I can never take. I'm leaving for Rabanastre at the end of the week. I haven't decided whether I'll come back.


	3. Chapter 3

_February 26, 715_

There's a new crop of kids sleeping under Migelo's roof. I knew Vaan and Kytes and I weren't the first, and I'm glad we're not the last. Even Migelo doesn't remember exactly how old Migelo is, but he's been around a long time, and it shows more than ever. There's more white around his muzzle than I remembered, and he's not likely to admit it but I think his hearing is going too.

He was surprised to see me on his doorstep but didn't ask me any awkward questions; he just took it in stride. He's good at that. One of the best. He even offered me my old room back as long as I didn't mind sharing. I haven't written him in years, and I feel like an ass. All the time I've known him he gave and gave and gave to the little birds he scooped out of the gutter, and once they could fly barely any came winging back. An Akademy-trained Healer will never be hurting for work or coin no matter where she goes. I think I'd like to be the one giving to him for once.

-ooo-

_March 12, 715_

Front page, Rabanastre daily press: Emperor Larsa has announced the Princess Tamrilan will be crowned Empress of Archadia; child is expected by midwinter.

-ooo-

_April 19, 715_

Larsa sent a letter begging me to return to Archadia. The emperor. Begging. It was pure poetry. He wants me to attend Empress Tamrilan in childbed, saying he would trust his firstborn to no other. He claims he doesn't love her, that he is fucking her…oh, I am _so_ sorry, "bedding her" for the sake of Archadia, and on, and on, and on.

I burned the letter.

-ooo-

_June 3, 715_

They keep coming, and I haven't the heart to pitch them into the hearth unopened, which only makes it worse. I miss the palace and my healing master and the Judges and even the rain. I understood, way back in my head, that I would have to face this some day. But how he thought that lying to me about it, straight-on, with that sweet little smile stuck to his face, would help...

-ooo-

_June 28, 715_

Basch appeared at the door of the boarding-house this morning. Not Judge Gabranth, but Basch, in plain clothes and without his aides, to deliver another one of Larsa's letters, and the sun mate to my moon ring. We talked for a long time, or rather, I talked and he listened. Men in love do incredibly stupid things. This is a given, a constant the world over. What he did to me was out of fear, not malice. And as such…forgivable, now that we've been apart long enough I don't feel like I want to punch him whenever I replay that scene over in my head.

What my mother taught me a husband should be is asking of him more than is humanly possible. There is simply not enough to go round, not if he wishes to rule with conscience and justice.

-ooo-

_July 12, 715_

He's thinner than ever and his clothes don't even fit him right anymore. He looks like a little boy playing dress-up in his father's purples, and I want to sweep him up in my arms and tell him that it's all going to be all right. But that's not up to me, so I won't.

-ooo-

_August 1, 715_

I missed his fingers on my skin more than I care to admit, or how sweet he looked deep in the night with the moonlight on his face. But even that isn't why I'm still here. I know how what agony is, when all the people you love are cut away from you one by one, by sickness or blades or circumstance. Watching him stand with the Empress hurts, but the other path hurts more.

And he _needs_ me. I can't move the world like he can, true. I can only give him little things: a kiss, a smile, a sympathetic shoulder, a bad joke after a particularly trying meeting. Before I wondered how much they mattered, but the scales are so finely balanced even a handful of those could tip it. Keep him feeling human, feeling something, so all that power can't burn the sweet little boy inside to dust and ashes. That's what_ I_ can do.

-ooo-

_January 27, 716_

It's a girl. A perfect, beautiful little girl. I held her in my arms and pretended her eyes were blue instead of brown.

I've tried hating her mother, but I can't, now that she's a real face and voice and not simply a name to be spat out like a bite of rotten fruit. She's not bad, as Archadian princesses go, and this wasn't her decision any more than it's mine to command the sun to rise and set. She has no illusions of winning Larsa's heart, only the desire to retire to her suites and play with her dresses and her paints. I think she wants to go back home. She's only seventeen. I pity her.

-ooo-

_March 7, 716_

Judge Zargabaath collapsed on the landing deck outside his offices this afternoon. Larsa and the rest of the Judges will be spending the night in vigil, but I doubt he'll live to see the morning. A rarity for a Judge, for their own body to be the one betraying them to their death. He pushed up to seventy and strode right on through it, so a heart attack was hardly unexpected, but it's still shaken the court. He was counselor to three emperors. It's hard to imagine. I'm glad he lived long enough to meet one who's likely to be the fourth, whether or not she'll remember it.

-ooo-

_May 3, 717_

She's not even my baby and the last year and a half was exhausting. Raising a child right is hard enough, but this one is growing up surrounded by viper pits. At least she has a lot of steady hands to guide her between them.

Watching Larsa play with Avania is precious. She's a hair puller, and is also a fiend for tassel. She must like the taste, I suppose, and with Archadian fashions being what they are these days there's plenty to go around. I only wish he could spare her the time she deserves, but duty demands. He makes a wonderful father...if only he had one baby to look after instead of a whole country.

-ooo-

_June 12, 717_

Larsa took my advice to appoint Judge Magister Calys to be Avania's guardian. She's from the southwest island territories (dark, like Reddas) and is the only one of the Magisters who has any visible sense of humor. I like her. Of the rest, Gabranth is a given, even if he's _still_ got that pole up his butt about Honor and Duty, and the others—Dhan, Marshanen, and Lio—are at least decent human beings as far as products of the Archadian judiciary go. The peace still needs blades to keep it in check, to bully the generals down when they start to froth, but at least his Judges don't _enjoy_getting their hands dirty.

-ooo-

_November 18, 717_

Empress Tamrilan and I have come to a mutually acceptable understanding regarding Larsa's bed, mostly because she doesn't really care for being in it. She has never played the jealous wife; she even thanked me, in a courtly, roundabout way, for teaching Larsa how to take his pleasure from a woman while giving some right back. It's not a skill commonly taught to young men in this country, apparently.

The whispers are that she prefers the company of one of her ladies-in-waiting—the redhead, they say. Scaaaaaaaaaandalous. Honestly, I don't care if they rut like rabbits in a tub of champagne as long as they prefer to leave Larsa out of it.

-ooo-

_January 15, 718_

It saddens me how little Avania knows of her own mother and father, not to mention driving Larsa into fits of intractable self-doubt. She cowers from him if he happens to visit when she's being testy, and will scream bloody murder if the nurse leaves the room. The woman tries every time to reassure him, but I don't know how far reassurance will go in these matters when it's Larsa and his only child and heir seems a stranger to him. She'll grow out of it soon. Hopefully soon enough that Larsa doesn't fret himself into little Larsa pieces, because damned if I want to clean that up.

-ooo-

_August 27, 718_

Archadia, Bhujerba, Dalmasca, and Rozzaria are trading barrels of wine instead of bullets. Draklor Laboratory has been opened to tours from the city schools. Larsa used a tiny snippet of the Treasury surplus to give me funds and a staff to set up a free clinic in Whispers, which has endeared him immeasurably to the factory workers living there. We barely have the facilities to treat a fraction of the patients that appear at the doors, but the _idea_ of it is almost worth more than the clinic itself. Gramis and Vayne were feared. Larsa is _loved_.

And Zargabaath (who, I think, is resting in peace) was afraid he was too gentle to rule. To be gentle isn't weakness. It takes strength not to raise a hand in anger, and courage to defy hundreds of years of callousness and casual brutality.

-ooo-

_November 15, 718_

For a change, it was Al-Cid that came to him. With wife in tow. And children. There were two (that he father on _her_, anyway); they were brats. The Arch-duchess has a remarkable talent for making any phrase sound like a euphemism for 'conducting sexual relations'. I took pity on the Empress on account of her condition (that, yes, tends to result from that sort of thing), rescued her before she blushed herself to death, and consequently missed all the best parts of the conversation.

-ooo-

_February 1, 719_

The Empress is sleeping, finally, and the bleeding stopped. I am selfishly glad I'm not the one that has to tell Larsa Avania will remain an only child, at least for now. In a way, it's a blessing for her mother. Both she and Larsa are blameless, and even her pig of a father has to concede the match should be allowed to dissolve after this. All the curing spells in the world won't allow her to carry a baby to term again, not without risking both their lives. Gabranth says they're likely to work out a generous divorce contract within a few weeks, after which the hunt for a bride begins again. I hope it takes them a very, very, _very_long time.

-ooo-

_June 17, 719_

Larsa has been dragging his feet like the most stubborn of caravan chocobos about this remarriage business, and it seems Archadia is well on its way to having its first female Emperor. I say it's about damn time. The old army dogs especially detest this idea. Rather odd, since somehow they've completely overlooked that tiny little nation whose warrior queen gave them merry hell for a couple of years before settling down with her crown, steadfastly refusing to marry, and proceeding to be the best monarch for generations. And let us not forget Judge Calys, delicate flower that she is so very _not_, striding about with a toddler in one hand and a flanged mace in the other. Hell, with some time in the gymnasium to get my knife forms back in shape, _I _could probably take one.

They must be getting so bored with no soldiers to order to their deaths that it's rotted out their brains.

-ooo-

_February 3, 720_

Avania's fourth birthday fete was last week. She speaks like a girl half again her age, and her tutors have reported astonishing progress with her letters. I am glad this seems to be one of the only things she has in common with her namesake. Her charm is the real thing, not a veneer over something dark and better left unseen, and her inquisitiveness, though nigh insatiable, seems born of a desire to simply understand the world around her, not control it.

I've taken to waiting up for her with something to nibble on after morning lessons, and we'll sit together by the pond eating half and feeding half to the ducks while I get babbled at. This formal palace upbringing has me concerned she may not be receiving the quantities of pudding fights and mud pies and tag-playing appropriate for a small child. I do my best to see she has an adequate supply, no matter how damaging it may be to my wardrobe.

-ooo-

_April 22, 720_

Are we a family? Mine has been torn and patched so many times there's none of the original cloth left. I can never marry the man I love, and his daughter, while she's closer to me than her own mother, isn't mine the way I imagined I'd have a child. All the love I have for them (and there's so much) is wrapped up in disappointed expectations and odd but welcome twists of fortune. Complicated, but by now I wouldn't trade it for anything.

-ooo-

_November 8, 720_

The leaves have fallen and plague has come to Archadia. It's like yet unlike the epidemic that struck Rabanastre all those years ago—it seems to fell the young and strong before the old. Those afflicted may be well one day and at death's gate the next, their faces tinged blue as if they were drowning. And they are drowning, in their _own blood_ as it seeps from their veins,which makes this sickness one of the most infernal things I have ever come across. It spreads on the wind, and the cleansing spells Queen Ashelia's healers brought from the archives do nothing. Larsa has closed the bridges and grounded all inbound ships for quarantine, but it's probably too late. The people are panicking. I will tend the ill in the palace as best I can.

-ooo-

_November 27, 720_

Larsa woke up coughing this morning, and by the afternoon was too weak to stand. I would pray, but I know better than anyone the gods care little for us.

-ooo-

_November 28, 720_

I will allow no one else in his sickroom but the Judges and the Pontifex, who has given him the dusk blessings. He fought me at first when I was trying to tend him—he didn't seem to recognize my face, or believed he saw another's. Now he doesn't move at all.

-ooo-

_November 29, 720_

I am tired to death but dare not sleep, so I will write. Calys came to me at dawn—we lost Avania, during the night. Larsa is still with us, barely. If he ever wakes, I will have to tell him his only child is dead.

Every flagpole and banner in Archades is flying black today, like a hundred thousand crows have descended on us.

-ooo-

_December 9, 720_

The Akademy healers have announced a new variant of the spell that seems effective. They worked more quickly than I expected, but not quickly enough for Avania. I did not birth her or nurse her, but she was still my little girl, and I couldn't save her. What a choice I was given: my lover's side, or my child's. I poured everything I had into keeping Larsa's heart beating and I succeeded, but that victory is almost too bitter to swallow.

These past few years have been so quiet, and the pages devoted to them comparably few. I never felt the need to confide much of my joy in this book. Joy was shared with those closest to me. For my pain I have no one.

-ooo-

_December 21, 720_

Larsa has the strength to rise but not the will. He won't eat unless I sit beside him and beg. He doesn't even cry, just stares out the window at nothing. Judge Gabranth continues to speak in his stead. We are telling the ministers it is complications from the plague. In a sense, it is the truth.

I never questioned Larsa's strength; he endured so much I believed it was bottomless. It wasn't. Losing Avania, he hit hard, and it shattered him. Why does fate toy with him? He is the most selfless man I have ever known, and whatever happiness he catches hold of is snatched away just as quickly.

-ooo-

_March 7, 721_

There were reports of a strange 'privateer skirmish' over the Mosphoran Highwaste. The whispers in the palace are that it's a new wolf practicing old tricks, waiting til Archadian was wounded and limping to break cover. Gabranth has gone to get answers out of Al-Cid Margrace. With force, if necessary.

-ooo-

_April 2, 721_

They've built a fleet that can cross the Jagds, that flies with no skystones at all, on only its own wings and the oil they take from the ground. What Archadia thought was hundreds of miles of impenetrable desert is now an open highway, and our fleets can't touch them over the poisoned Nabradian soil.

All knowledge gleaned too late from the man that betrayed us in the first place—not willingly, as if that absolves him. Gabranth confided in me that Al-Cid's covert meetings with Larsa did not go as unnoticed by the Rozarrian secret police as they'd believed, and they have no mercy to spare for traitors. They delivered Al-Cid an ultimatum: feed Emperor Larsa discreet little packets of lies to conceal the military buildup, or watch as his youngest son was tortured to death. There was no choice. The warmth we thought we felt from them was feigned, and even the visit to watch the children of two old enemies eat cookies in the grass was nothing but a ploy to draw Larsa away into complacency. I would rail against Rozarrian barbarity, but Larsa's own blood has perpetrated as bad or worse against their own.

He didn't ask for mercy from the Magisters and was given none. The execution will be tomorrow, by firing squad.

-ooo-

_April 15, 721_

Larsa is and has always been a man of peace, and he has a gift for forging it. What he does not have is a gift for strategy. The death toll from the plague was catastrophic, and it hit hardest in three places—the slums, the school dormitories, and the army barracks. By the time it reached Rozarria, our healers already had the spells rewritten. Larsa gave it to them, as a gesture of goodwill, to preserve innocent lives. What else could he have done? Withheld the cure and be responsible for the sickness and death of millions of innocents? Was there a right choice, or only a terrible one and a horrifying one?

Larsa is lost so far into despair that I even I failed to draw him out of it. I never, ever thought it would come to this, but I regret those final blows on the decks of the Bahamut. Vayne was mad, but he was also one of the best tacticians Ivalice had ever seen. Fifteen years dead and _now_ his baby brother truly needs him.

-ooo-

_April 29, 721_

I can smell the same stench in the air again—terror of losing your land, your home, and your very self. You never forget that feeling. It's waiting, waiting, and more waiting with enough foolish hope twisting up your heart that the final blow hurts all the more. At least the first time I didn't have to bear it alone. I never before or since saw Tomaj's bar that full, still and silent as death except for the crackle of voices over the radio. Vaan and I had each other's shoulders to cry on when Dalmasca announced its surrender. But I doubt my crushing desire to have his shoulders back concerns him now, wherever he is, alive or dead.

Gabranth and Calys have gone to the front, and Larsa is…Larsa is not himself.

-ooo-

_July 3, 721_

Archadia is too weak; the war is lost save for a few bloody formalities. Nevertheless, the Emperor will be leading this final charge, perhaps because he feels his life is the last thing left to give to his country, perhaps because he has lost his mind. Dalmasca has no shortage of tales of brave queens who rode into battle beside their husbands. But this is not Dalmasca, and I am not a queen. I was forbidden to join him.

Gabranth sent a courier informing me of "arrangements made" to ensure my safety, which more than anything tells me Larsa doesn't plan on coming back. Once and only once did I help work a miracle to return a crowned head from the dead, but what are the chances I could do it again?

-ooo-

_July 5, 721_

The past comes rushing back so quickly I'm drowning in it. It was _Vaan_ who met me on the landing pad, looking as old as I feel. I warned him to be sparing with the potions, but he didn't listen, as if he ever did or will. There are lines around his eyes and mouth that shouldn't be there, not at thirty-one. He'll kill himself if he's not careful, like the career Hunters eaten alive in their prime by cancers that should have struck when they were seventy.

He's changed almost beyond recognition, sharpened, I would say, gone bitter and vicious but not so far over the edge he isn't ashamed to let me see what his life has become. I finally understand why he didn't write me after we parted ways that night—pride first, because I must have been wrong, and then shame, because I was right.

-ooo-

_July 7, 721_

We're taking Vaan's ship to Golmore, then heading up through the plains on the ground. The Viera still owe Vaan a favor or two, and they settle their debts, even to Humes. What I will do when I reach Dalmascan soil is…I have no family, no friends, no husband, no child. Returning to Queen Ashelia's court is too dangerous; she is in no position to refuse the Rozarrians should they wish to take the precaution of executing me. One of the seaside towns, perhaps. I've always wondered what it's like to live by the sea.

Yes, I decided to live. Not that the alternative hasn't been dancing in the shadows of my mind since the year turned.

-ooo-

_July 8, 721_

Mateus awoke. I haven't felt him stir in years, not since I surrendered my daggers for a surgeon's scalpel and with them the need for his service. He gave me a message, three words and no more, from Gabranth's Adrammlech: "He yet lives."

* * *

_A__fterword_

The remaining pages of the diary are blank, and the name and fate of its author remain unknown. Emperor Larsa Solidor is recorded in the_ Annals of the House of Margrace _to have taken a coward's draught of poison following Archadia's defeat at the Battle of the Nabreus Plateau. However, modern archaeological excavation of the ancient capital found his tomb to be empty, and the old adage of history being unkind to the defeated is oft repeated only because it is true.


End file.
